


Church of your Heart

by Enfilade



Series: Mend What is Broken [5]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Better present relationship, Consensual Sex, Desk Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Pharma is a sleaze, Robots, Unhealthy past relationship, kissing robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 11:58:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1857201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enfilade/pseuds/Enfilade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drift's not the only one dealing with the ghosts of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Church of your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, dark past and better present, this time from Ratchet's point of view. Pharma being emotionally abusive and a sleaze. Hurt/Comfort. Also, Thunderclash is easy.
> 
> The song "Church of your Heart" is by Roxette.
> 
> I'm having a hectic summer, so I wanted to post some delicious Dratchet to tide everyone through until I'm able to be online more often. I don't write in chronological order, so, while I'm still working on part 4, part 5 is all done, and here it is. Enjoy!

Church of Your Heart

_It’s been so long since I first saw you_

_But I still love that smile in your eyes…_

_Yes it’s true_

_Right from the start_

_I believed_

_In the church of your heart…_

\--“Church of Your Heart,” Roxette

Work. It was never-ending.

In a corner of his mind, Ratchet knew that the data he was sorting and filing on five separate pads wasn’t urgent. In fact, he probably ought to be leaving the task of compiling executive summaries for First Aid; if the other mech was going to inherit the mantle of Chief Medical Officer, he needed to be experienced in the requisite duties. And it didn’t take a medic to upload patient files to the main server. 

But Ratchet couldn’t stop.

He was on duty, would be on duty for another hour. Since the med bay was quiet tonight, he had to do something constructive with his scheduled time. He’d scoured the bay for every conceivable task he could find; then he’d carted these datapads into his quarters, where he’d spread them out across his desk and started in. He’d been bent over the desk for most of his shift, labouring away until his neck ached and his optics strained. 

Ratchet felt a certain sympathy for Ultra Magnus. The prospect of just leaving all this work sitting around undone was…was…

…was an excuse.

If he was working, he didn’t have to think about his life outside of the med bay. Or rather, lack of life outside of the med bay. His personal life was a gaping hollow he filled with administrative busywork and…

“Hey, doc,” a voice purred in his audio.

Two black hands appeared on his chestplate. They were attached to arms that curved around his lower torso. From the wash of heat and tingle of an electromagnetic field against his back, Ratchet could guess that the arms’ owner was almost, but not quite close enough, to touch.

_Drift._

How in the Pit did the kid get into Ratchet’s hab suite without the doctor hearing him?

_Stealth warrior plus distracted medic absorbed in his work equals…surprise._

Ratchet huffed. “I’m busy.”

No sooner were the words out than Ratchet regretted the sharpness in his tone. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t happy to see Drift.

By the Matrix, Ratchet still hadn’t fully wrapped his mind around the thought that he, of all mechanisms, had Drift for his lover.

Drift wasn’t the least bit deterred. “You work too hard.” The speedster’s hands moved on Ratchet’s chest, caressing gently. Ratchet gasped as the teasing warmth on his back became the reality of Drift’s body pressed to his.

Ratchet fumbled to gather up the datapads. He formed an unstable stack that promptly fell apart into a messy heap. His hands were shaking, and Drift’s hot breath on the back of his neck was very, very distracting. Ratchet felt his knees tremble. Slag it! Couldn’t the kid just wait a few more moments before…

“Is that your expert medical opinion?” The medic couldn’t seem to change his default setting away from _sarcasm_ —millions of years of habit were hard to break—and it was downright embarrassing to be pinned against his desk like this in the middle of a job.

“First Aid agrees with me.” Drift’s hands made their way to Ratchet’s armour clasps and lifted, and Ratchet realized exactly what was on the speedster’s mind.

“I’ve, uh, I’ve got important things to do here.” Ratchet realized he didn’t sound very convincing, and in truth he didn’t want to be. It always surprised him that Drift genuinely wanted him as a lover and not just a companion, and he was still getting used to the idea.

“Do them later,” Drift murmured, and Ratchet was sorely tempted.

But Ratchet took his professional commitments very seriously. Whatever Drift had in mind, it needed to wait.

“Drift, I can’t. I’m on duty.” He put his hands over Drift’s but couldn’t quite bring himself to shove the speedster away.

“No, you aren’t.” Drift’s voice was a self-satisfied purr. “First Aid has taken over for you, exactly one hour early.”

“What?” Ratchet spluttered.

“I told you, he agrees with me that you need some down time. And yes, that’s his expert medical opinion.” Drift followed up this statement with a nip on the back of Ratchet’s neck, under the helm. Ratchet jumped. “Too much stress isn’t good for you.”

A slow, smooth stroke of Drift’s tongue over the tender spot followed, and Ratchet found himself resting his weight on his arms when his legs threatened to collapse.

“I need to…confirm this…” It was hard to keep the static out of his voice as he opened his comm link. “First Aid, this is CM…this is Ratchet,” he corrected hastily, hoping he could someday break his bad habit of pulling rank on his successor. “I…”

“I assume duty,” First Aid piped up. “Handover complete.”

“But…wasn’t handover supposed to be…” Ratchet swatted at Drift’s hands, which had actually opened two of his armour clasps and travelled to the second pair. How was he supposed to carry on a professional conversation when Drift was trying to get under his plating? And succeeding? “…an hour from now?” he managed to finish through gritted teeth.

“It’s a quiet night and you look pretty tired, sir. If you don’t mind my saying so, you work too hard.”

First Aid sounded more than a little smug.

It was a _conspiracy_ , that’s what it was!

“I’ll take care of things here,” First Aid continued. “You go ahead and relax.”

 _Relax._ Was _that_ the euphemism they were using these days?

Ratchet’s armour hit the floor.

“Have a good night, sir,” First Aid said, and Ratchet swore he could hear the smirk in the junior doctor’s voice. “First Aid out.”

Drift moved back, just a step, and Ratchet tried to get his legs under him. His knees shook again when he heard the clattering sound of Drift’s armour joining his.

“Drift,” Ratchet protested weakly, “anyone could walk in here.”

“No, they can’t,” Drift whispered as he slid his hands down Ratchet’s sides. “Doors are locked.”

_Damned ninjas._

Drift pressed against Ratchet’s back. The medic gasped as he felt Drift’s cable nudging his inner thigh. The speedster trailed kisses over Ratchet’s shoulders, each carefully positioned over a sensitive place on the medic’s neural net. 

_I should never have taught him that…_

Teaching him the location of the nodes had, until now, been its own reward, but Ratchet was becoming more than a little concerned about the position he was in—bent over his desk, face in his work, aft in the air and an amorous speedster behind him. Drift was definitely in the mood, and Ratchet had to admit that he was more than a little turned on himself, but…not like this.

Pharma had ruined the fun of this position.

Ratchet had been, he admitted, more than a little wild in his younger days, and he had a dusty but still intact archive of memories of the shenanigans he’d gotten up to during his medical training. One of the highlights involved Ratchet, Thunderclash, and the oversized titanium desk in the office of the dean of the Iacon Medical Academy. Ratchet was still not entirely sure where Thunderclash had gotten the key codes from, but…how had Thunderclash put it? “Anyone with a desk big enough to use as a berth is asking for it to be used as a berth?”

Primus, Thunderclash had sprawled across that thing with room to spare.

Ratchet huffed. Good times, but there was only so much disposable entertainment a mech could take before he got hungry for something more. Ratchet had tired of casual encounters not that long after graduation, and started looking for a lasting relationship.

He hadn’t intended to consider his most promising student.

Pharma, on the other hand, didn’t give up. Ratchet had thought that “I don’t date students” was synonymous with “You have no chance,” not “wait four years and try again.” But Pharma did try again. And again. And again.

And Pharma was brilliant. And handsome, what with his aristocratic features and his _wings_ … Really, what was there not to like? A mechanism who was interesting and challenging to talk to, who understood the medic’s lifestyle, who could carry on technical conversations, who contributed to Ratchet’s projects, who didn’t leave on missions for months on end and come back battered into scrap…or failed to ever come back at all.

…and those gorgeous wings and a repertoire of tricks that Ratchet hadn’t even _imagined_.

Pharma was the best, no doubt about it, and finally Ratchet had bowed to logic – his life worked very well as one half of the Autobot Medical Division’s power couple.

Ratchet’s memory archive, though, was a lot more tangled when it came to Pharma. The early centuries had been good. Great, in fact. He’d been happy, content.

It disturbed him that there was no clear line between good memories and bad. He’d been through these archives countless times and yet he’d never figured out when things had taken a turn for the worse.

Regardless, this position Ratchet found himself in now had been one of Pharma’s favourites, and Ratchet had countless examples of how these encounters went. Ratchet would be hard at work, when Pharma would invite himself in and start in on the distraction, just as Drift was doing now. It always ended the same way: Pharma’s hand hard on Ratchet’s helm, shoving his face against the desk as they interfaced, and Pharma hissing a string of filth, typically to the effect of how much of a slut Ratchet was, and how Ratchet could never concentrate on his work when there was even the slightest chance of a good hard ‘facing. What a great lover Pharma was and how Ratchet couldn’t live without him. How shocking it would be if all their colleagues found out, if they walked in and saw Ratchet taking it right in the middle of (insert medical examination room, surgery bay, professional office, etc. right here). Later, Pharma expected Ratchet to repeat the phrases back to him, as though they were some sort of shameful confession.

At first Ratchet had excused Pharma’s dirty talk as a game. Ratchet had given that game a try himself, and although it wasn’t his favourite thing, he accepted that some other mechs really got off on it, and he didn’t mind playing along if his partner enjoyed it. Over time, though, he’d started to become concerned about the note of _sincerity_ he thought he heard in Pharma’s voice. And Ratchet really didn’t enjoy pretending he meant it when Pharma asked him to say things like “ _I do slipshod surgeries because I can’t wait to get the patient out of here and get your shaft inside me,”_ or “ _I can’t wait to retire and spend the rest of my life on my knees waiting for you to use me_.”

Dirty talk was fun in fantasy land. It was different when Ratchet suspected that Pharma secretly meant it.

When he tried to talk to his conjunx about it, though, Pharma immediately got sulky. It was just for fun; Ratchet didn’t need to take the whole thing so _seriously_. What was the harm in one partner helping the other fulfill a fantasy, one that gave him pleasure? Wasn’t that what conjunx endura did for one another? Pharma certainly didn’t complain when Ratchet wanted to do the thing with…

And Ratchet would sigh and apologize and walk out of Pharma’s office wondering why he felt as though he were the one in the wrong.

Looking back, Ratchet saw how the relationship had imploded in slow-motion. Pharma always wanted to jack in; when he occasionally let Ratchet do it, he acted as though he were gracing Ratchet with a huge favour, and Ratchet felt thankful enough to give Pharma his own way the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. If Ratchet complained, Pharma acted hurt. If Ratchet played along, Pharma pushed the limits. Ratchet figured it wasn’t even the ‘facing that got Pharma off in the end; it was the degradation of his partner.

Looking back, Ratchet wondered why he’d put up with it.

An established relationship was something comfortable, something familiar. Ratchet firmly believed that the conjunx endura bond was not to be taken lightly. Deep down, though, Ratchet admitted that a large part of him remembered those early days, and hoped that if he held on and wished hard enough, Pharma might go back to being the mech he remembered, the bold and affectionate and charming young doctor he recalled from long ago, when love had been a wonder and not an obligation.

Well, he knew better now.

He’d thought himself ruined for relationships and spent millions of years in self-imposed celibacy until a certain hotblooded speedster had showed up and rocked his world to its foundations. He was, Ratchet admitted, far luckier than he had any right to be, for a gorgeous and talented mechanism like Drift to have any interest at all in an old, worn-out ambulance like him.

He almost felt bad about the need to disabuse Drift of the notion that his desk was a fun place to play. Ratchet rather liked the way Drift’s hands cradled his hips and Drift’s tongue teased his spinal strut; he arched his back in appreciation, bracing against the desk. Maybe he could ask Drift to repeat this maneuver somewhere more appropriate, like in front of the berth. Maybe…

Ratchet gasped.

The medic knew his mate was an accomplished martial artist, but he kept forgetting precisely what that could mean in practice. In this case, it meant a shockingly short time between the moment when Drift delivered his last nip to Ratchet’s back, and right _now_ , when moist, hot lips were delivering a tender kiss to Ratchet’s _valve_. Ratchet could feel Drift’s cheeks against his thighs. Any thought of how the swordsmech could drop to his knees so quickly were blasted out of his thoughts by the delicate caress of Drift’s tongue.

Oh, that was not _decent_.

Drift tasted him. Savouring him. Ratchet felt a pool of moisture built inside in response to the whisper of the sweet, wet tongue over his tender internal sensors. His body appreciated what Drift was doing very, _very_ much, and as Drift ran his hands to cup Ratchet’s aft, Ratchet realized that he’d shifted his legs further apart to grant the speedster unfettered access. The swordsmech was just so damned flexible….

Drift performed a long, slow lick, and Ratchet braced his elbows on the desk, allowing his arms to take his weight as his knees threatened to give out. He realized, dimly, that his aft was up in the air, so much so that Drift’s hands had slid to his upper thighs, where they supported him as the white speedster suckled experimentally, and probably got a nice taste of lubricants for his trouble.

Drift hummed appreciatively. 

Correction. That was the same noise Drift made when he was refuelling on an energon blend that he enjoyed. 

Drift had _definitely_ gotten a taste of lubricants, and clearly found them to be delicious.

Ratchet groaned. How was he supposed to move away from an encounter that felt like _this_?

He probably could have enjoyed standing here letting Drift lap his valve as long as the speedster wanted, but his valve was starting to ache deep inside, in places a tongue couldn’t reach. The oral stimulation was decadent and heavenly and still just a little short of satisfying. It served only to make Ratchet wetter.

In the back of his mind, unbidden and unwelcome, he could hear Pharma’s voice. 

_Now this is a familiar sight…the Chief Medical Officer bent over his desk just aching for a frag. What a buymech you are. Your berth’s on the other side of the room, but you can’t make it that far, can you? Professionalism just goes out the window when your hot little valve starts dripping, doesn’t it? Look at you, face down in the crew’s medical records, juicy little valve on display for anyone who walks in here to see._

_Shut up_ , Ratchet thought.

Ratchet felt a gust of air against his back: then hands around his waist, the tip of a cable nosing into the delightful slick of his fluids and Drift’s, mingled together at the lip of his valve. It felt good, good enough to give Ratchet pause in his search for the right words to explain that he appreciated the attention, but could they please move this to the berth.

Or even the floor.

_Aren’t you lucky I came along? Or…could you have waited? You’re such a slave to your valve, Ratchet, I half expect you’d have fragged anyone who came through that door. Hold the medical emergencies, the Chief Medical Officer needs to get off… Their cables won’t satisfy you, of course, you’d need mine to do that, but theirs might hold you together long enough for me to arrive and give you what you need… What do you need, Ratchet? Tell me what you need. Oh, does it hurt? Do you need a cable in you so badly that your valve is in physical pain? I can make that pain go away, Ratchet, just tell me…tell me you need a good hard frag from Chief Medical Officer Pharma…_

_…Tell me what you need…_

“Drift!” Ratchet shouted.

_Take that, Pharma, you son of a glitch. It’s not you I need. It’s Drift…my Drift…_

Drift made a sound, an inarticulate cry of need, and grasped Ratchet firmly by the hips.

If Ratchet was going to stop Drift, he had better do it now, and fast. Drift had clearly interpreted his cry as encouragement, and now he was…

Ratchet bit down, hard.

If he said anything now, Drift would interpret it as rejection. Ratchet was not going to do that to the speedster, not when he knew damn well the origins Drift had come from, and what he’d gone through on his way from the streets of Rodion to his current position as one of the more infamous Autobots on record, and how uncertain he was about the intricacies of healthy consensual interface. Drift needed appreciation and encouragement a lot more than Ratchet needed escape from a few bad memories. 

And Ratchet was already very accustomed to putting up with things he didn’t like for his partner’s sake.

Drift nipped at Ratchet’s collar assembly and thrust.

Ratchet hadn’t expected Drift to be able to enter him so easily, but Drift’s cable moved in deep on a long, smooth stroke. It seemed that even if this position didn’t turn Ratchet on, the things Drift could do with his mouth had more than made up for it. 

Drift moved again, and Ratchet gasped. Intellectually he’d known for most of his life that certain nodes really only got triggered properly in this position, but somehow he’d forgotten just how damn good it felt when a cable slid over them!

Except…there were a couple more nodes, deeper, that Drift wasn’t quite reaching yet.

It was sweet, really. Everyone on the Lost Light had theorized that Drift would be a maniac in the berth and Ratchet had bought into those theories, little guessing Drift hadn’t been with anyone since his rebuild in New Crystal City. It never failed to surprise Ratchet that Drift, despite his vast experience, was still a little shy and awkward when it came to taking part as an equal participant. This was one of the results: Drift always so careful that he’d hurt Ratchet, or worried that Ratchet might not like something he tried.

“Little deeper,” Ratchet panted, pressing back into Drift’s hips. 

Drift increased his pressure ever so slightly. His cable moved a bit further in, triggering the edge of another node, which really only succeeded in teasing Ratchet more. The medic groaned, resting his forehead against his desk. If he were religious, he’d be praying for strength. As it was, he was left with nothing more than hope that Drift would finally have mercy and give him what he wanted…

“Feels good,” Drift whispered.

Yes, it did, but… “Grab my hips,” Ratchet said. “Don’t be afraid to be a little rough.”

Drift’s hands curled tentatively around Ratchet’s hip assembly as instructed and thrust again. Yes, a bit better, but…

“I want you deep, Drift, come on…please…harder…”

Drift surged against Ratchet, scraping his chestplate on Ratchet’s back.

“Yes, like that.” The words were marred with static but Ratchet thought they were still intelligible. They had to be. This…this was what he’d been craving! “Put me where you want me…frag me hard.” Drift was filling him, and the tip of his cable was nudging a node that hadn’t seen action in longer than Ratchet could remember. “More…more…harder…yes!”

To the Pit with it. Ratchet curled his fingers over the far side of the desk, leaning back into Drift. Drift slammed into Ratchet, shaking the entire desk, again and again until one of the datapads fell onto the floor with a clatter. Drift didn’t notice. Ratchet didn’t care.

Finally. Oh, Primus, _finally_ , and it felt so good. The ache was soothed even as Drift’s cable stirred Ratchet’s nodes to an even higher state of excitement. Ratchet tried to tell Drift that _yes_ , _this_ was what he’d wanted, but only a strangled cry came out of his lips.

Fortunately, it conveyed the same meaning.

A mech could get so deep this way. Ratchet felt Drift’s jack brush his port, that little socket buried deep inside his valve, and then Drift jacked in. It wasn’t their previous gentle connection; it was Drift’s jack slamming home into Ratchet’s socket, opening a full connection almost instantaneously.

Ratchet somehow managed to get the download filing into archive before he lost awareness of what was going on around him right now, but barely; he hadn’t been prepared for the connection to open so suddenly. As the download started he caught a quick glimpse of a scene from Drift’s memories…

_A white mech, powerful square shoulders, leaning over a desk, hard at work. A warmth in the spark to see the other Autobot; a sense of security, stability, as he stepped into the other mechanism’s quarters. There was safety here, and in this safe space he was free to feel, and what he felt was this: the other mech was a wonder, so generous, so tender. He wanted to spend his life with this person. And…he wanted this person. He wanted him intimately, and that was okay. That was, in fact, good. Interfacing with him was an act of love as well as an act of mutual pleasure._

_He had only just learned to like this act, and now he wanted to do it with his lover. Often. Soon… Now._

_But…the other had not even looked up. He was so busy, as he always was. He worked himself to exhaustion serving others._

_I want him. I need him._

_I crave him._

_He…Rodimus said…Rodimus said Autobots like it over a desk. That it gets your cable extra-deep. That it feels amazing to have your lover so far inside. I wonder if my lover would like it?_

_I’m going to give him a nice surprise…_

Ratchet groaned as the memory faded. He was never going to understand how just the sight of his back could spin Drift’s crankshaft; but he didn’t care. This wasn’t degradation; this was worship. And it was hitting every node inside his valve and stoking him hotly. His hands, clawing at his desktop, had made a scattered mess of his datapads, and he’d probably dented the edge of the desk with his hips, but Ratchet didn’t care in the least.

“Dr…Drift…” he cried, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Pharma’s shadow slipped away, soundly beaten.

“Ratch…” Drift’s voice was a hoarse cry, and suddenly he picked up his pace.

Drift’s movements became powerful, primal, slamming his cable home into Ratchet’s port, driving hard and fast at a punishing pace. Ratchet felt as though he were strapped to a runaway train, thundering towards climax at a terrifying speed, and though he should be concerned, though he should be uncomfortable, he wasn’t—far from it. Drift was wild with pleasure and Ratchet had done it to him…now he could ride Drift’s ecstasy all the way to the peak, and it was intense and primitive and raw and honest and…and…

…and incredible.

Ratchet cried out, his poor overstimulated valve spasming in powerful waves, and Drift couldn’t take more than one more thrust in and out of that milking grip before he, too, shouted in pleasure and then collapsed onto Ratchet’s back, his fans whirring madly and blasting Ratchet with gusts of hot air. Ratchet’s own fans whined in protest, sandwiched between an unyielding desk and a red-hot speedster, unable to draw cool air from anywhere.

Drift kissed the nape of Ratchet’s neck, trailed kisses over his throat. “You think anyone ever died of overloading?” he murmured. “Should I be worried?”  
“I’m going to die of overheating if you don’t get off me,” Ratchet muttered, and then immediately wanted to smack himself for it. Sore knees and dented hips and air-starved intakes didn’t justify that kind of attitude towards his lover.

“Sorry,” Drift blurted, pushing away, and Ratchet could have kicked himself as Drift’s cable slid from the medic’s port and left him feeling momentarily empty inside. Even the warmth of their afterglow couldn’t assuage the sudden chill as Drift broke all contact. 

“No, I’m sorry,” Ratchet said, as he turned around.

“Sorry for what?” Drift had taken a step backwards and turned to the side, hiding Ratchet’s view of his interface equipment.

“Being a crabby, ungrateful old cuss.” He offered a tentative smile. “Forgive me?”

Drift looked at Ratchet with a sweet, almost silly curve of his lips—the kind of expression given by a protégé to a mentor in anticipation of a reward for a job well done. And yet, Drift had a glimmer of uncertainty in his optics; an unspoken concern that maybe, just maybe, he might have let Ratchet down. “Was that any good?”

Only Drift could bend a mech over his own desk, frag him silly and then go looking for an _evaluation_.

Ratchet wrapped his arms around Drift’s waist. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. You were right—I needed that. Need you,” he murmured, and kissed his lover’s cheek. “You did good, kid.”

Drift’s smile evolved into a full-out goofy grin as he flung his arms around Ratchet’s chest and lay his head against the doctor’s shoulder. “You, um, you wanna come cuddle with me?”

Ratchet’s response was to scoop the speedster up with an arm under his knees and another across his back. Drift yelped and clung on tight. “Primus, I…I keep forgetting you can lift me so easily.”

“It’s easier when the patients are unconscious and not _wriggling around_ like…Stop that!”

Drift squealed. “Not my fault! You tickle!”

“Tickle.” Ratchet snorted and deposited Drift on his berth, where the speedster landed hard enough to bounce, laughing the whole while. Ratchet considered the scene and couldn’t help cracking a smile.

Drift sobered up long enough to point a finger at Ratchet. “You look good when you smile, Doc. You should do it more often.”

“Is that your expert medical opinion?” Ratchet teased.

“Nah. That’s one of my revelations from long, intense periods of meditation and contemplation. Laughter is good for the soul.”

Ratchet lifted his gaze heavenward. If there were a God, hopefully He would deliver Ratchet from His most ardent follower.

…Or not.

Truth be told, if—and that was a very large if, but theoretically speaking, if there were really some truth to Drift’s precious mythology—then Drift’s presence in his life was uncomfortably reminiscent of a miracle.

It was a disturbing line of thought, so Ratchet didn’t pursue it. He chose to believe, instead, that he was simply far luckier than he deserved to be.

Drift was smirking at him. Ratchet’s jaw dropped—the ambuscade! He’d been spinning Ratchet a line just to see if he could get the medic going.

“Smart-aft,” Ratchet said, swatting him playfully.

“Learning from the best.” Drift moved over to create space for Ratchet beside him.

Ratchet settled next to the speedster on the berth. Yes, he wanted to spend his evening laughing and snuggling and maybe, just maybe, trying out a few more compromising positions. First, though, there was something he needed to say.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” He stroked Drift’s finials with a gentle hand. “I don’t think I say it often enough.”

“I know,” Drift answered, quickly enough for it to be automatic, and Ratchet put no credence in it, because just as his default setting was _sarcasm_ , Drift’s was _agreement_. It was his next words that Ratchet believed. “It still means a lot for me to hear it, though.”

“I’m gonna work on getting better at that. Better at being…” He kissed Drift’s cheek. “Grateful.” Kissed his jawline. “Affectionate.” Kissed the corner of Drift’s mouth. “Hopeful.”

“Happy,” Drift whispered, and captured Ratchet’s lips with his own.

It was some time before Ratchet was able to answer.

“Yeah, kid. That, too.”


End file.
